Enter the Dragon (1973)
★★★★½ — Enter the Dragon (1973)
There are movie stars, and then there is Bruce Lee. Watching Enter the Dragon again as part of my A-Z World Movie Tour (Hong Kong), I kept coming back to that simple, undeniable fact. The man doesn't walk into a frame, he commands it. Every movement, every glance, every controlled breath carries a weight that no amount of editing or cinematography can manufacture. You either have that quality or you don't. Bruce Lee had it like nobody before him and, I'd argue, nobody since.
Now, let's be honest about what this film is. The story is hardly Shakespeare. A martial arts tournament hosted by a criminal kingpin on a heavily guarded island, our hero goes undercover, fights break out, justice is served. It's hammy in places, the acting from some of the supporting cast tips into pantomime territory, and if you're coming in expecting a tightly plotted thriller you might raise an eyebrow or two. But here's the thing: none of that matters even slightly, because Enter the Dragon delivers exactly what it promises and then some.
What this film did for martial arts cinema in the West is genuinely difficult to overstate. There were kung fu films before it, of course. I've been working through some brilliant ones on this tour, and something like Come Drink with Me shows just how rich that tradition already was. But nothing had hit Hollywood with the sheer seismic force that Enter the Dragon managed in 1973. It didn't just open a door for Asian action cinema in the West, it blew the whole wall out.
The action sequences are extraordinary, and they hold up remarkably well. Lee's physicality is almost surreal to watch. The speed, the precision, the economy of movement. There's a moment involving a room full of mirrors near the end that is genuinely one of the great set pieces in action film history. It's tense, inventive and visually striking in a way that feels ahead of its time. For sheer fighting craft, very few films touch it. Even something as relentlessly impressive as The Raid 2 owes a debt to the standard Enter the Dragon set for choreographed combat on screen.
The ripple effect of this film is staggering when you stop and think about it. A young Jackie Chan is lurking in here as an extra, and you can trace a direct line from Lee's influence through Chan's entire career and well beyond. Fighting game culture owes an enormous amount to this film too. The whole DNA of franchises like Mortal Kombat and Tekken, the tournament format, the roster of distinct fighters with individual styles, the spectacle of one-on-one combat as pure cinema, it all traces back here. Enter the Dragon didn't just influence other films. It shaped pop culture in ways people often don't fully credit it for.
What makes it genuinely sad, and genuinely remarkable in equal measure, is that Lee died before the film was even released. He never got to see the impact. He never got to build on it, to evolve further, to give us whatever would have come next. We got this and we should be grateful for it, but there's always that ache of wondering what else he might have produced. The aura he projects in this film, that mix of ferocious physical ability, genuine screen charisma and an almost philosophical calm, is something I don't think we'll see replicated. Stars come and go. That kind of presence is rarer than rare.
So yes, the plot is a bit daft. Yes, some of it is clichéd. I won't pretend otherwise. But Enter the Dragon is one of those films where the whole is so much greater than the sum of its parts. It's joyful, thrilling, and anchored by a performer who remains utterly captivating fifty-odd years on. If you haven't seen it, stop what you're doing. If you have, you probably already know it deserves another watch.
Four and a half stars.
Rating: ★★★★½ | Year: 1973 | Watched: 2025-06-26
Where to watch
Watch in the UK
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Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi
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Related on Movies With Macca
More from Hong Kong: A Better Tomorrow (1986) · Hand of Death (1976) · Come Drink with Me (1966) · Street Fighter (1994)
More from the 1970s: Fantastic Planet (1973) · Here and Elsewhere (1976) · Italianamerican (1974) · Punishment Park (1971)
More action: A Better Tomorrow (1986) · The General (1926) · Hand of Death (1976) · Daredevil (2003)
